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What Is Offset Loading?
The Muscle PhD
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Front and Backloading Strategies
3 Reasons Why Your Biceps Aren't Growing
Should You Carbohydrate Cycle?
Do you Need to Train to Failure to Make Gains?
Can Essential Amino Acids Help You Burn Fat?
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Fernando de la Espriella
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Front and Backloading Strategies
3 Reasons Why Your Biceps Aren't Growing
Should You Carbohydrate Cycle?
Do you Need to Train to Failure to Make Gains?
Can Essential Amino Acids Help You Burn Fat?
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![Do you Need to Train to Failure to Make Gains?](https://img.youtube.com/vi/p_ux-7uhk1c<p>“You should only start counting once you feel pain!” You’ve probably heard this statement getting thrown around in your local gym, or even in some of your favorite movies! However, should you try to reach your absolute limit during each set? If not, then what’s the metric? If you’re scared of losing gains because you’re not training till failure, yet you’re uncertain of the validity of the “reps till failure” mindset, then here are some facts that will help you decide.</p><p>First off, what do people really mean when they’re talking about rep failure?</p><h3>Stimulus</h3><p>Failure in the fitness industry essentially means that you’ve reached your inability to complete another repetition with proper form. It’s important to always maintain proper form when it comes to your exercise routine, otherwise you risk injury! Now, say you have the proper form and you’re just about ready to start on your set, what should you focus on?</p><p>The key thing to focus on when it comes to any given set, is which repetitions are actually stimulating muscle growth. <a href="https://themusclephd.com/training-to-failure/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Repetitions become stimulating</a> when you maximally recruit and fire the muscle. That’s where the “only start counting once you feel pain” mantra comes from. Basically, if you’re doing a set of 15 reps, the first 5-10 reps wouldn’t stimulate muscle growth at all, because you haven’t reached that super fatigued state. That fatigued state happens when you maximally activate and fire your muscle, and it’s required in order to stimulate the growth process. A <a href="https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2012/07000/Muscle_Activation_Strategies_During_Strength.21.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2012 study</a> showed that repetitions become maximally activated on the last part of your set. So, maybe your last 3-4 reps.</p><h3>Stimulus vs Long Term Goals</h3><p>If you stop reading right about now, you’d probably be a strong proponent of the “training till failure” mindset. However, you need to ask yourself, are you all about stimulus, or are you looking for long term gains? Because there are also plenty of studies showing that if you don’t train to complete failure, you can still make gains and grow.</p><p>Instead of isolating your thought process to a single set, ask yourself, what if you’re doing 4 sets in that particular exercise? If you’re doing 4 sets of 10 reps, you’d probably get your stimulus on the 8-10th rep. If you hit that 10th rep, you’ll definitely grow, however you’ll start getting central fatigue, which will stop you from performing your best. And the next set you’d probably get only 6 reps, and around 4-5 reps on your final set. Meanwhile, if on your first set, you stopped at that 9th rep, you’d still get that stimulus to grow! And you’d probably be able to reach higher reps in your 2nd and 3rd sets, leaving you to go on till failure on your fourth set, in order to maximize your gains. Your goal should always be to use less reps if fatigued, but enough to stimulate the muscle.</p><p>We hope this article helped enlighten you on what it means to really hit failure on your workouts, we’ll see you next time you have any questions!</p>/0.jpg "Do you Need to Train to Failure to Make Gains?")
, are just what your body needs to get started on your goals.</p><h3>What Are Essential Amino Acids?</h3><p>Despite what a lot of people will go the distance to tell you, macronutrients aren’t everything. If you’re trying to lose weight, the quality of your protein plays a major role. Your body needs certain kinds of high quality protein in order to deliver essential amino acids to your body, whether that be through diet, or supplements. While we typically get 20 amino acids from our daily diet, 9 of these acids can’t be produced internally, these are referred to as “Essential Amino Acids.”</p><p>One measure of assessing protein quality is how well a protein source can deliver essential amino acids to your body. Any protein source that cannot deliver all of the EAAs is considered an “incomplete protein.” Conversely, complete proteins are proteins that contain all the essential amino acids. This includes: Meat, Eggs, Dairy Products.</p><p>Now that we’ve got a firm foundation, how does that actually help you burn fat?</p><h3>Protein Synthesis</h3><p>While you might know that your diet plays an integral part in your muscle gain and fat loss, you may not know just how much influence your diet can have on your training. If your diet is low on EAAs, no matter how hard you workout or how long you spend at the gym, you’re going to lose muscle. Essential amino acids heavily influence your body composition, as they are the amino acids responsible for triggering protein synthesis, or short term muscle building.</p><p>Short term muscle building is an energetically demanding process that forces your body to drain energy in a cell. Simply, because your body needs so much energy to build your muscle, you actually end up burning more calories at rest while recovering from hard workouts. Not only does this help with fat loss by itself, but it can also increase the mitochondria in your cells, thus enhancing fat burning even more.</p><h3>Not All Proteins Are Created Equal </h3><p>Complete proteins can make or break your diet. Complete proteins are proteins that give all the essential amino acids, such as: Meat, Eggs, and Dairy Products. On the other hand, incomplete proteins cannot deliver all the essential amino acids, such as: Beans, Legumes, Tofu, Soy, or Vegetables. These incomplete proteins are lacking in one or more of the essential amino acids. Except for soy, it actually has all the essential amino acids, but is low on a lot of them.</p><h3>The Better Essential Amino Acid for Protein Synthesis </h3><p>We’ve mentioned that our body needs 9 essential amino acids that it can’t produce on its own, however, which one should you focus on while building muscle? Leucine is considered a quality amino acid, and can aid in protein synthesis. In fact, we often consider leucine to be the “key” to triggering protein synthesis. You’ll need about 2-3 grams of leucine to maximize protein synthesis.</p><p>Here’s a guideline for when you’re looking for leucine:</p>/0.jpg "Can Essential Amino Acids Help You Burn Fat?")